today - while sorting through photo filters on Instagram - I had to take pause over the reality of what I was doing. on the hunt for that special filter. the right contouring and lighting. to soften the blemishes and to darken the eyelashes. more lips, less teeth. any combination of contrast and skin tone shading and saturation that would somehow turn me into a glammed up and celebrated movie star. and I stopped mid screen touch, to take a pause. pay attention to what I was doing - what I was allowing to happen.
when I was younger, I hated that my eyes puffed up when I smiled - when I looked in the mirror, I saw two small eyes that couldn't stay open when I laughed. I saw someone who smiled too hard, and therefore didn't have the big eyes like 'those girls' (without ever really knowing who 'those girls' were). I would practice smiling in the mirror, and yet inevitably, photos would come back showing a squinty eyed, big mouth (the teeth! oh the teeth) smile of a girl who would never be the 'good looking one'.
there were lots of things like that - things that stared back at me, with a scowl, when I looked in the mirror.
my hair never looked like the voluptuous hair in commercials, and it could never stay curly like the girls who spent so much time in the morning. it just hung there, and I began to affectionately refer to it as 'dead fish hair'. no style. no substance. just stick, straight, hair.
my teeth have never been perfectly white - they each have enough of a yellow tint that I notice it every time I looked in the mirror. some darker than others, but (to younger me) GLARINGLY neon yellow in contrast to those people I talked to, or passed on the streets, with perfect white teeth, all lined up consistently in their mouths. no gaps, no chicklet front teeth leading the way. just two perfect sets.
my butt didn't exist - it never did. (regardless of the lies they told me about puberty). women's pants were long enough but had hips out to eternity, and men's looked like clown pants on my legs (which also lacked much meat). no curvaceous backend to fill out bathing suits, and no bumper to create a time space continuum in dresses or skirts. I watched people slide pants on in movies and commercials, with beautiful backends, while I rested on my pancake tush.
and somehow, I attributed my failures as a child, a teen, a young adult, a professional, and so on, to all of these things. someone didn't like me? if I had bouncier hair they might. teacher didn't call on me? it's my teeth - oh GOSH it must be my teeth. boys didn't ask me out? pancake butt - at it again. and I wrapped all of my tiny self worth into these things. things that people may or may not have noticed. and moreso, things that had zero impact on what my heart looked like, how my brain worked, and what my words and actions felt like for the person on the receiving end.
it has taken a long time - and I've changed plenty from the tiny little girl with buck teeth and a ponytail she would refuse to remove (even while sleeping), whose limbs grew faster than her body knew what to do with. and it's difficult to say when it happened, or how, but one day (not so long ago), I wore a bathing suit and not once did I think about my butt, and it's lack of contour, and how I had to spend the day yanking the bottoms every 5 min. and another day shortly after that, I laughed out loud hysterically with my mouth wide open, with no regard for my prominent teeth and what they said to those around me. and maybe another week or so after that, I gave my hair a good shake and didn't notice how it fell lifelessly. and I felt happy in those moments. because in those moments that I saved myself from thinking about my butt or my smile or my hair, I allowed myself the presence of a moment with friends at the pool, a moment of laughter with my sisters in genuine happiness, and a moment of quiet meditation in genuine comfort.
today I took a photo of myself. and let me be very clear on this point - this is not a #nofilter #iwokeuplikethis kinda thing. I wore makeup and curled some hairs and my dad said 'you're glowing' and I said 'thanks! it's called makeup.' but it goes like this:
I smiled some pale yellow teeth out front and centre. and they smiled back. I swung my hair which showed some semblance of a curl (which was the result of hard work, and a hot curling wand) - the same hair that I knew would be exhausted from trying so hard to stay curled about 5 min after finishing, so I gave it a pat to let it know it was ok to lay flat, and i knew it was trying it's best. I smiled at my blue under eye circles, and my forehead wrinkles, and my flat chest and my pancake bum. and I smiled a puffy eyed smile. a true smile. because the puffy eyes mean happiness and laughter and the flat hair means the ability to toss it around with reckless abandon and imperfect teeth mean vanity will never consume my bank account or my spare time.
and I took a photo, and decided it didn't need a filter. not because of perfection, or femisnim or proving a point. but because my dad said I was glowing and because my smile felt wide and true, and because sometimes you just want people to know what your insides are feeling - so you carry it all over your face.
and I puffy eye smiled all day and all night. and probably caused some extra wrinkles.
